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Topic: freezing point (Read 2670 times)

I have an altbier in secondary and the only place I can use to drop the temp is the garage - I live in Minnesota air tem outside ia around -1F - the temp in the garage is about 33F up until the temp of the carboy dropped off the bottom of the sticky thermometer scale it was running about +5 over the air temp in the garage.

it is off the cemetn floor on scrap wood and covered with a coleman camp sleepingbag

I used the bottom 1/3 of a 55 gallon drum. Place the carboy in the drum with water up to the 1/2 mark on the carboy. Drop a submersable pump used for summer outdoor ponds etc. Then using an aquarium heater and blankets begin regulating the heat.

Works great here in Packerland. BTW, when are the Vikings going to move?

Also there isnt enough alcohol in beer to keep it from freezin or even sloshing up. Never put a beer in the freezer to chill and forget it? It will freeze. I think 32 is ok if not for very long periods of time as the beer wont reach that temp for a couple of days I would think.

Actually, freezing your beer, at least to the slush stage, can be good for it. That's what ice beer is, and it's more than a marketing gimmick. It can drop out some of the tannins and polyphenols, making a smoother tasting beer. Chill haze will develop at temperatures above freezing, and tannins and polyphenols are part of chill haze.

With commercial ice beer (has that stuff disappeared?), a small amount of ice is filtered out, resulting in about 1/2% higher alcohol, but unless you are making an eisbock, you can just let it thaw.

The late George Fix spoke about this at the MCAB II technical conference in St. Louis about ten years ago (although it might have been at the previous conference in Houston). I am currently lagering a Oktoberfest that I kept on the back deck for a few days while the temp hovered in the low 20s F until it I could hear slush in the cornies, then brought it in to the fridge, where it is currently lagering at about freezing (32F).

All that said, altbier is traditionally lagered at higher temperatures than lagers, at about 40F. Lower won't hurt, though.

Listening to Charlie Bamforth will have to wait until I hve more time, but he's always worth it.

I did find a few references to George Fix and ice brewing. I don't see anything to confirm what I remembered from his talk (it was MCAB I in Houston in 1999) that allowing the slush to thaw retained the benefits, but that still may be the case. Perhaps the tannins, polyphenols and proteins that are trapped in the ice complex and drop out.

Anyway, here are a HBD post from Louis Bonham (MCAB conference organizer), a reply from George, and an undated web article from George (I guess that his widow, Laurie, is keeping it online):

I went to Amazon to see if George had got his second edition of "Principles of Brewing Science" (mentioned in his article) published before his death and good ole Amazon informed me that I had purchased it in 2004! That's a little scary but useful. I found the first edition (1989) and his "Analysis of Brewing Techniques" on my shelves, but didn't realize I had the second, and I can't find it. Bummer!

This is a very nice article on lagering. There aren't many out there that give so much detail on what is necessary and what is not.

I also found the comment about natural vs. forced carbonation. This is another interesting subject altogether where many swear that natural carbonation is better and even more swear that it doesn’t make a difference.